Mobey Forum Tackles Mobile Payments

The industry group has formed a task force to assess the mobile point of sale market in North America and Europe.

Mobey Forum, a bank-led industry association focused on mobile financial services, today published the first in a series of white papers examining what it calls the "mobile point of sale (MPOS) revolution sweeping across North America and Europe."

The paper, titled "The MPOS Breakthrough: How the Power of Mobile has Disrupted Payments," is the first output of Mobey Forum's recently formed mobile point of sale task force. The task force is intended to deliver educational and actionable analysis on the MPOS market, said the group.

Through a series of three papers, the task force's goal is to drive adoption of MPOS technology by addressing the complexities of customer needs and expectations, analyzing mobile's disruptive impact on the payments market and exploring the strategic options and business models for banks and other financial institutions.

The first white paper just released is designed to give banks and other pertinent players in this space the necessary foundation of knowledge needed to enter the mobile point of sale market, the group said. It also highlights key factors influencing the growth of the mobile point of sale ecosystem as it transitions from a niche solution for micro-merchants to a new revenue generator for multinational retailers, according to Mobey Forum.

“Little more than three years after the first wave of MPOS solutions hit the market, the technology is already redefining merchant card acceptance at the point of sale, by rewriting the rules on who can accept card payments and also vastly simplifying the process of doing so," reads a statement from Matt Calman,chairman of the Mobey Forum MPOS Task Force and SVP and R&D executive at Bank of America. "Solutions from new, disruptive players in MPOS have gained real traction with micro merchants, and banks and financial institutions are now starting to show their hands."

Bryan Yurcan is associate editor for Bank Systems and Technology. He has worked in various editorial capacities for newspapers and magazines for the past 8 years. After beginning his career as a municipal and courts reporter for daily newspapers in upstate New York, Bryan has ... View Full Bio